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Choice, accountability, and autonomy
In the opening acknowledgments to Dr. George H. Wood’s Schools That Work, he concedes that he found out “how hard it is to sell a book on what is good about American schools.” His purpose, however, is clear: “Could every American school work so well for every child?” (1)
For the past decade, the debate over school reform has been fragmented into three debates: one of choice, one of freedom, and one of accountability. Choice remains dominated by the championing of voucher programs - an approach that this paper believes only serves to stratify the education system into schools of the poor and privileged. The continual rejection of voucher initiatives - most recently in Utah - speaks to the movement's ineffectiveness. Freedom has reached the forefront most specifically in the debate over charter schools - and with it, concerns over accountability. It is accountability, undoubtedly, that has been at the center of these three debates: it is a shorter word for the No Child Left Behind Act.
Rather disconcertingly, these ideas have remained more as points of disagreement than being embraced, as this paper sees it, as complementary. As this paper has argued, the No Child Left Behind Act is failing precisely because it lacks the flexibility (and incentives) necessary to enable schools to extend their efforts beyond the test alone. The result is an environment that avoids risks - and potentially great returns.
This paper is undoubtedly unwelcome and uncomfortable at the extremities of each sides of this debate. Its purpose has been to unite the underlying promise of choice, accountability, and autonomy. It must first confront the skeptics.
Rage against the machine
The first line of argument is the failure of federal oversight. "Since the [federal government] has been seriously involved in education 'we have suffered…a catastrophic decline in educational productivity, analogous to buying 1970s cars today and paying twice their original selling price,'" Neal McCluskey writes in Cato@Liberty, the public-policy institute's official blog. "So what’s the solution to all this?" Mr. McCluskey asks. "Universal school choice. Give parents control over public education money instead of giving it to the educrats, and make the schools compete ... Only then will the catastrophic flaw in top-down control at any level be eliminated, and the power structure for real accountability be in place." (2)
The source of his frustration is test-based accountability - which he argues, continues to diminish standards. Richard Rothstein writes in The American Prospect that this system "corrupts schooling in ways that overshadowed any possible score increases." One such consequence, he writes, is the goal distortion of undue emphasis placed on particular subjects and metrics. Even the specifics can be distorted: the No Child Left Behind Act demands proficiency of all subgroups, but by the very nature of statistical accuracy, the margin-of-errors spread farther— in short, “inaccurate accountability.” (3)
Kansas responds to this line of thought through part agreement and part argument. Mr. Rothstein’s questioning of goal distortion is more or less the same as this paper’s frustration with “entropy as the result of specificity” - and addresses it on several fronts. First, agreeing with Mr. Rothstein’s assessment of goal distortion, the paper’s understanding of a school’s effectiveness incorporates more than test scores.
It also agrees with Mr. McCluskey that accountability alone has and will continue to fail, but asks how will choice alone manage any better if schools cannot truly differentiate themselves from one another? Autonomy, too is needed. It is here that schools can move beyond merely teaching to the test, but transcending it, through curriculums and policies that are truly competitive.
This paper strongly disagrees that the federal government should not be a force in education—and questions how much so it truly has been ‘seriously involved’ in public schooling. The No Child Left Behind Act has failed precisely because it lacks assertiveness: without universal national standards—with which Mr. Rothstein supports, if proposed by a third party—it is in the states interest to limit standards to meet compliance.
The federal government must remain involved in the nation’s education, but it must transcend the ill-conceived frameworks in which it has been content with. In a nation wrecked by inequalities of funding and standards, it is the position of this paper that quite simply, the federal government must become a stronger force in this nation’s education. But it must be a focused force — uniting standards to reflect a united economic and democratic interest, and ensuring equality of opportunity, no less through guaranteed payment of tuition.
The opportunity is present, quite simply, to transcend beyond this wretched system of inherent inequality—and federal policies ineffective precisely because it accepts this as an unquestionable reality—to embrace a system that is truly both comprehensive and effective.
Dismal pickings
“School choice seems simple, straightforward,” editors Edith Rasell and Richard Rothstein write in School Choice, “but despite the apparent consensus, critics of school choice have raised a number of troubling questions. Will all parents be equally able with sufficient time and sophistication to choose the best school for their children? Will choice further stratify an already stratified educational system? In the past school choice led to segregated schools; will outcomes be better this time?” (4)
Amy Stuart Wells’ study of the choices of parents of inner-city African American students found that: Several factors, including expectations, racial attitudes, sense of efficacy, and alienation and isolation from the larger society, affect the amount of information parents and students have access to and the kinds of decisions they make. These factors … lead to educational decisions far removed from tangible measures of school quality. (4a)
Douglas Willms and Frank Echols offer an interesting insight on Scottish schools, where families are allowed to choose schools outside their neighborhood—the schools required to publish information on their curriculum, school discipline, and examination results. “Many families,” the summary reports “choose schools based on factors unrelated to achievement or academic quality.” They include, Jon Witte writes, geographic location and disciplinary climate as well. (4b,c)
Even the Scottish families who sought the highest academic quality were susceptible to a lack of meaningful information. Parents, Mary Driscoll writes, are also vulnerable to self-deception: adamant that their chosen schools were superior, in defiance of a reality that suggests otherwise. (4d)
Choice, Rasell and Rothstein believe, cannot be a “single factor solution.” They are right. Without an effective framework responsible for accountability—clearly and fairly assessing schools on all relevant factors so that parents may be truly informed, and thus empowered — choice is meaningless. The editors are correct—that unless an effort is made to unite standards by dismantling the unequal fifty-tier system of standards—school choice will only compound this fifty-tier mishap into a one-hundred tier monstrosity.
Without autonomy, schools cannot truly differentiate themselves—and will be continually bound to an uninspired approach to education that has continued to plague this nation’s schools.
What’s missing
This paper acknowledges that performance—no matter how defined—is not the sole influence in determining which school a child is sent to—nor should it be. This paper is not written in the interest of having students “pushed out of their neighborhood schools and onto a bus heading for the suburbs by an assertive parent.” (4) The failure of poor, urban and rural schools will not be fixed by outsourcing their children to better performing schools elsewhere.
School improvement must be organic, continuous, and close to home. It is achieved by giving school leaders the flexibility to embrace innovative programs such as KIPP as their school’s groundwork, and affording them the power to enforce. This power— ranging from what teachers to keep and recruit (and how much to pay them) — allows them to compete for talent.
With control of funding, school leaders can invest in their resources and facilities on which an environment that fosters education so fully depends upon. Thus empowered, no longer must school buildings be decrepit and void of books—not only because parents are equally empowered to move elsewhere, but because that there are no more excuses.
Think—but think clearly
This paper has not been disillusioned by either argument that education is in too much of the public interest to deny private (preferably, not corporate) interest, or too eager to embrace the fanciful notion that complete privatization can effectively regulate itself. John Kenneth Gailbraith sees the conclusion clearly: “I react pragmatically. Where the market works, I’m for that. Where the government is necessary, I’m for that… I’m in favor of whatever works in the particular case.”
This is a unique case— for, Jim Horning is right, “nothing is as simple as we hope it will be” — one that is at once faced with enormous responsibility and immense complexity. The government must exist in education to ensure the equality of standards and funding, to see to it that at minimum, all schools are fulfilling their responsibilities; the market exists to encourage schools, parents, and student to demand more of themselves, and be empowered to seek it.
John Chubb and Terry Moe of Politics, Markets, and America’s Schools finished their work with the conclusion that “private control means less bureaucratic influence; less bureaucratic influence leads to better school organization; and better school organization leads to higher student achievement.” (4)
This debate is a question of words—all of them political, and all of them polarizing. It need not be so. Private, autonomous, charter are all the same: independence. Choice is nothing more than the proper fit for school, student, and parent. The aim is to continue to diminish the variance in performance between schools - and now to address the large variance in performance within them without compromising diversity. This paper has recognized and addressed the very real risk of disillusioned parents by encouraging a greater transparency in total performance and satisfaction, while also encouraging schools in turn to work further in the students’ and their own, to indulge in unspeak, enlightened self-interest.
This encourages schools to actively recruit students—and also offers them the incentives to seek out and develop poor-performing students just as much so as the talented. It is then that schools embrace the challenge of an empowering education—and if such an equilibrium can be reached, this paper has succeeded.
(1) Schools That Work: America’s Most Innovative Public Education Programs. George H. Wood, Ph.D. Penguin Books. 1992.
(2) George's Will be Done on NCLB. Neal McCluskey. Cato@Liberty. The Cato Institute. 11 December 2007. http://www.cato-at-liberty.org/2007/12/11/georges-will-be-done-on-nclb/
(3) Leaving "No Child Left Behind" Behind. Richard Rothstein. The American Prospect. 17 December 2007. http://www.prospect.org/cs/articles;jsessionid=acp1XfueERQdql6HVB?article=leaving_nclb_behind
(4) School Choice. Ed. Edith Rasell, Richard Rothstein. Economic Policy Institute. 1993.
a - The Sociology of School Choice: Why Some Win and Others Lose in the Educational Marketplace. Amy Stuart Wells.
b - The Scottish Experience of Parental School Choice. J. Douglas Willms, Frank H. Echols.
c - The Milwaukee Parental Choice Program. Jon Witte.
d - Choice, Achievement, and School Community. Mary Driscoll.
Showing posts with label autonomy. Show all posts
Showing posts with label autonomy. Show all posts
Sunday, November 25, 2007
At the gate
International rankings
[You can view the PDF here.]
Independence is the essence of Kansas’ position – nationalized funding is but a secondary aim, albeit the potentially most effective for bringing about the full force of an incentives-based competitive market. This paper does not doubt the overall effectiveness of its schools reform platform if the means for financing it was altered to become the legally-bound responsibility of the state. A nationalized solution, then, is most pragmatic because it is less crippling locally and requires less political will to implement and follow-through.
One can also combat the negative correlation between centralized funding and schools performance on three fronts. Mexico, for better or worse, best embodies these trends.[11] First, geographic disparities naturally result in differences in the source of a schools funding. Smaller countries, e.g., Luxembourg, can more readily centralize funding.
[1] The World is Flat. Thomas L. Friedman. 2005.
[2] Full of woe. The Economist. 17 February 2007.
[3] The Complete List: The Top 100 Global Universities. Newsweek. http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/14321230/. 13 August 2006.
[4] The Educated Child. William J. Bennett, Chester E. Finn, Jr., John T. E. Cribb, Jr.
[5] Reading Literacy of 15-year-olds. Education at a Glance 2004. OECD. http://tinyurl.com/2w7z5k.
[6] Average mathematics scale scores of eight-grade students, by country: 2003. Institute for Education Sciences. National Center for Education Statistics. U.S. Department of Education. http://tinyurl.com/2u7tmq.
[7] 15-year-olds’ Engagement in School – A Sense of Belonging and Participation. Education at a Glance 2004. OECD.
[8] Class Size and Ratio of Students to Teaching Staff. Ibid.
[9] Catching up. The Economist. 23 December 2006.
[10] Total Public Expenditure on Education. Education at a Glance 2004. OECD.
[11] Mexico’s mezzogiorno. Time to wake up. A survey of Mexico. The Economist. 18 November 2006.
[You can view the PDF here.]
Worry, Thomas Friedman tells Americans: The world is flat (forgive the advertisement) – and losing the Olympic basketball tournament is just the beginning. Standards of education are rising throughout the world, and as the country’s preeminence wanes, so go its substantial advantages.[1] After all, a globally competitive economy necessitates a globally competitive education. The United States, it seems, makes a solid performance, but leaves much to be desired, that is, depending on where one stands. It is, more than anything, a numbers game.
Many, with whom this paper agrees, would have the world’s richest economy be the best educated as well. (It, the United Nations ranks, is 12th out of 21 countries.)[2] Others, are more non-chalant: after all, of Newsweek’s top ten global universities, eight of ten are American.[3] The argument is at both points self-defeating and immediately beneficial to this paper’s quest for privatization. First, the gap between a poor education and superior economies does not bode well for long-term economic growth – the investment seems only capable of deteriorating; second, universities, private or autonomous, represent the ideal embodiment of a privatized schools system. Steven Sample, President of the University of Southern California, definitively concludes, “A country that has the best universities in the world has among the worst elementary and secondary schools.”[4]
Measuring the reading proficiency of fifteen year-olds, as measured by OECD, 61.1% of America’s students rank at or above Level 3 proficiency. This trails Japan’s level of 72% or Australia’s 68.6%. All told, fourteen of twenty-seven scores rank higher than the United States in terms of proficiency at the high end. More disconcerting, the percentage of the country’s pupils ranking at the bottom is 6.4%, more than mean of 6.0%, and greater than seventeen other nations.[5]
Many, with whom this paper agrees, would have the world’s richest economy be the best educated as well. (It, the United Nations ranks, is 12th out of 21 countries.)[2] Others, are more non-chalant: after all, of Newsweek’s top ten global universities, eight of ten are American.[3] The argument is at both points self-defeating and immediately beneficial to this paper’s quest for privatization. First, the gap between a poor education and superior economies does not bode well for long-term economic growth – the investment seems only capable of deteriorating; second, universities, private or autonomous, represent the ideal embodiment of a privatized schools system. Steven Sample, President of the University of Southern California, definitively concludes, “A country that has the best universities in the world has among the worst elementary and secondary schools.”[4]
Measuring the reading proficiency of fifteen year-olds, as measured by OECD, 61.1% of America’s students rank at or above Level 3 proficiency. This trails Japan’s level of 72% or Australia’s 68.6%. All told, fourteen of twenty-seven scores rank higher than the United States in terms of proficiency at the high end. More disconcerting, the percentage of the country’s pupils ranking at the bottom is 6.4%, more than mean of 6.0%, and greater than seventeen other nations.[5]
Math, as measured by the Department of Education’s Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study, te lls a similar tale: the country ranks 15th – only 8% above the mean, and trailing Singapore by 20 percent.[6]
Among the more interesting statistics, 25 and 20.2% of America’s students report a low sense of belonging and participation, respectively, also higher than the mean statistics for both benchmarks.[7] At 15.5 students to teachers at the pre-primary level, America is almost 5% higher than the mean; for all-secondary education, the country’s rank of 15.5 is some 14% above average. The country finds a rare success at the primary level where it has a ratio that is seven percent less than average. The country is notable for the near absolute stability of its ratio – the United Kingdom’s ratio ranges from 26.6 students per teacher to 12.5.[8] (This marked disadvantage for England’s primary-level children is remarkably clear: the cost, The Economist notes, of a child leaving English primary schools illiterate is some £50,000).[9]
Seeking the forest
Invariably, it does not take much to become muddled in statistics. Therefore, two points should be drawn in summary: higher centralized funding, as advocated in this paper, is negatively correlated with a country’s reading performance. (Only 8% of America’s school funding comes from the national government, whereas the mean is 50 percent.)[10] Schools independence, however, demonstrates a positive correlation (see chart). What then to make of the contradictory numbers in context of this paper’s argument; and what to weigh more?
Independence is the essence of Kansas’ position – nationalized funding is but a secondary aim, albeit the potentially most effective for bringing about the full force of an incentives-based competitive market. This paper does not doubt the overall effectiveness of its schools reform platform if the means for financing it was altered to become the legally-bound responsibility of the state. A nationalized solution, then, is most pragmatic because it is less crippling locally and requires less political will to implement and follow-through.
One can also combat the negative correlation between centralized funding and schools performance on three fronts. Mexico, for better or worse, best embodies these trends.[11] First, geographic disparities naturally result in differences in the source of a schools funding. Smaller countries, e.g., Luxembourg, can more readily centralize funding.
Yet, this difference in the source of funding does not differentiate between the level of resources available within and between countries: where the United States is relatively prosperous throughout its states, in countries like Mexico, where income distribution is not as equal, it is more pragmatic for a central government to step in. While central government spending may be high, it does not necessarily mean that it accounts for much, making such comparisons untidy.
Second, underlying factors regarding the nation’s economic development and the structure of its education system can skew results. Where economic conditions are bleak, the advantages of staying in school shrink. As a result, enrollment falls – or was never enforced – and performance deteriorates.
Third, general inefficiencies, a consistent target of this paper, could also be put into play. Mexico’s Educational Workers’ Union, the largest trade union in Latin America, has what The Economist terms “a stranglehold” on education funding. The union readily absorbs increased funding, and control of bad teachers, Enrique Rueda, director of Oaxaca's teachers, says is “very bad.” As a testament to the country's inefficiencies, public education spending as a percentage of all public expenditures in 2001 was marked at 18.0 – in excess of the mean of 8.9 percent – a territory it finds itself in with none other than the United States.
Second, underlying factors regarding the nation’s economic development and the structure of its education system can skew results. Where economic conditions are bleak, the advantages of staying in school shrink. As a result, enrollment falls – or was never enforced – and performance deteriorates.
Third, general inefficiencies, a consistent target of this paper, could also be put into play. Mexico’s Educational Workers’ Union, the largest trade union in Latin America, has what The Economist terms “a stranglehold” on education funding. The union readily absorbs increased funding, and control of bad teachers, Enrique Rueda, director of Oaxaca's teachers, says is “very bad.” As a testament to the country's inefficiencies, public education spending as a percentage of all public expenditures in 2001 was marked at 18.0 – in excess of the mean of 8.9 percent – a territory it finds itself in with none other than the United States.
[1] The World is Flat. Thomas L. Friedman. 2005.
[2] Full of woe. The Economist. 17 February 2007.
[3] The Complete List: The Top 100 Global Universities. Newsweek. http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/14321230/. 13 August 2006.
[4] The Educated Child. William J. Bennett, Chester E. Finn, Jr., John T. E. Cribb, Jr.
[5] Reading Literacy of 15-year-olds. Education at a Glance 2004. OECD. http://tinyurl.com/2w7z5k.
[6] Average mathematics scale scores of eight-grade students, by country: 2003. Institute for Education Sciences. National Center for Education Statistics. U.S. Department of Education. http://tinyurl.com/2u7tmq.
[7] 15-year-olds’ Engagement in School – A Sense of Belonging and Participation. Education at a Glance 2004. OECD.
[8] Class Size and Ratio of Students to Teaching Staff. Ibid.
[9] Catching up. The Economist. 23 December 2006.
[10] Total Public Expenditure on Education. Education at a Glance 2004. OECD.
[11] Mexico’s mezzogiorno. Time to wake up. A survey of Mexico. The Economist. 18 November 2006.
A different way of thinking
Choice, autonomy, and accountability
[You can view the PDF here.]
Kansas advocates the privatization of each school in America into an independent, non-profit form:
A change of thought
Indeed, such a reform is a departure for the better – public by nature of funding and accountability, but autonomous by the means in which they are reached. For schools now are placed in an interesting situation: not dictated by free markets and lacking direct, active investors, there is no existence or necessity for the system’s evolution. Perhaps this gives reason to Bill Gates’ claim that schools are “obsolete.”
Today, schools are reduced to an extreme polarity of classes of great difficulty and those of near trivial importance. Students are reduced to notes and definites in a rigid structure—where they should be enabled. It is unfortunate that out of irrelevance—and the lack of an opportunity to pursue their own passions, dedication is written off and the most vulnerable walk away.
Often, the most difficult classes are the result of a vicious cycle of misunderstanding—the result of a lack of time, increasing frustration, and a lack of awareness on part of the teacher of what their students really know.
As an institution, schools are further severing themselves from their responsibilities through bureaucratic decay. A focus on proximate indicators—race among them—bears little relevance to the nature of a modern society where wealth determines all. Narrow metrics—less children per teacher—cause a shotgun effect of irrational phenomena, often at the detriment of other aims—hiring more unqualified teachers.
Certainly it is possible for a cynic to argue that teachers have become but mere commodities reduced to a state of depressing manipulation. The National Educators Association, a teacher’s union, reports that 73% of new hires report entering the profession out of their desire to work with young people and 68% cite it as the reason for remaining. It is a shame many leave within their first five years.[1] By no means should teachers be compelled to sign themselves away to an oath of poverty. That—and bureaucratic obscurity.
Three-hundred and sixty-five years after the Massachusetts Bay Colony made proper education compulsory, the least we’ve learned is that education is not meant to fail you.
[1] National Teacher Day Spotlights Key Issues Facing Profession. National Educators Association. 2 May 2006. http://www.nea.org/newsreleases/2006/nr060502.
[You can view the PDF here.]
Kansas advocates the privatization of each school in America into an independent, non-profit form:
1.1 under which each will be responsible for determining the philosophy, style, and execution in the teaching of their charges in accordance to commonly accepted formats of teaching;
1.2 held accountable to a national system of standards that are specific in aim of basic skills for all students regardless of school type, and globally preeminent standards for each type of school; where
1.3 the federal government provides the cost of tuition for all students, and determines the cost of tuition for each school on the basis of a
standard formula of performance;1.4 the opportunity for parents to determine the school of choice for their children within their districts, and where available, outside of them.
A change of thought
Indeed, such a reform is a departure for the better – public by nature of funding and accountability, but autonomous by the means in which they are reached. For schools now are placed in an interesting situation: not dictated by free markets and lacking direct, active investors, there is no existence or necessity for the system’s evolution. Perhaps this gives reason to Bill Gates’ claim that schools are “obsolete.”
Today, schools are reduced to an extreme polarity of classes of great difficulty and those of near trivial importance. Students are reduced to notes and definites in a rigid structure—where they should be enabled. It is unfortunate that out of irrelevance—and the lack of an opportunity to pursue their own passions, dedication is written off and the most vulnerable walk away.
Often, the most difficult classes are the result of a vicious cycle of misunderstanding—the result of a lack of time, increasing frustration, and a lack of awareness on part of the teacher of what their students really know.
As an institution, schools are further severing themselves from their responsibilities through bureaucratic decay. A focus on proximate indicators—race among them—bears little relevance to the nature of a modern society where wealth determines all. Narrow metrics—less children per teacher—cause a shotgun effect of irrational phenomena, often at the detriment of other aims—hiring more unqualified teachers.
Certainly it is possible for a cynic to argue that teachers have become but mere commodities reduced to a state of depressing manipulation. The National Educators Association, a teacher’s union, reports that 73% of new hires report entering the profession out of their desire to work with young people and 68% cite it as the reason for remaining. It is a shame many leave within their first five years.[1] By no means should teachers be compelled to sign themselves away to an oath of poverty. That—and bureaucratic obscurity.
Three-hundred and sixty-five years after the Massachusetts Bay Colony made proper education compulsory, the least we’ve learned is that education is not meant to fail you.
[1] National Teacher Day Spotlights Key Issues Facing Profession. National Educators Association. 2 May 2006. http://www.nea.org/newsreleases/2006/nr060502.
The irrational phenomena
A frazzled schools sytem
Education, El-Hajj Malik El-Shabazz tells us, “is the passport to the future.” In the cinema, his character spoke of having the best organization his people had ever had. Incompetents – (put kindly) – destroyed it. It is a pity that so much of organizational failure is tied up in nonsense. Nonsense, that makes for all too hilarious tales from the classroom.
But first, a better understanding of the school system’s structure is needed. The basics: the 49 million children, 105,105 schools, and nearly fifteen thousand districts are well understood.[1] What is not is how organizational structure and management more often than not work against its interest. The school as an institution finds itself in an interesting predicament. It is not dictated by free markets and it has no direct, active investors, so there is no existence or necessity for the organization’s evolution. Decay is inevitable. But it is not the school’s nature to compete – after all, equality is the ultimate aim sought. Competition in the school’s current form puts much smaller, newly established alternatives against the far more prevalent established system. Schools, in this manner, are no different from the cable company that cares not if you leave.
Kansas argues that competition between organizational systems works against the public interest by the very nature of its limited scope. Full autonomy, centered on ideas, but united in ultimate aims, is much more approachable: all schools should reach proficiency (the equality sought) – they compete on how best to reach it for each student. With this belief, comes the essence that most philosophies of a student’s education are effective – separately and only for relevant students. Yet, it is too often the hodgepodge of policies and philosophies that work against a school’s interests.
The school system, as with any institution, has a tendency to sever itself from its responsibilities through decay due to inefficient, inappropriate, or nonexistent responses to the environment in which the institution is operating in. The most common presence of such severance is through dilution of power downwards from where the policy originated, and a dilution of information clarity as it moves up the hierarchy, each prompting a delayed, incomplete, and often ineffective response to developments. It is only too fitting that management expert, Jim Collins, began his book Good to Great by stating “We don’t have great schools, principally because we have good schools.”
External developments are key causes for an institution severing itself from its responsibilities. Companies that fail to account for emerging developments in their fields fall victim to “disruptive” innovation. Instead of adopting a mindset of pursuing innovation and the renewed efficiencies it brings, as Clayton Christensen lays out in his book The Innovator’s Dilemma, an organization stalls against the short-term cost and reduction of industrial clout for scale to its ultimate demise. Where the capital markets find such demise in corporate failure, public institutions, such as schools, find their end in increasing ineffectiveness.
Politicizing an institution's systems can be equally problematic. The fickle avoidance of tax, poor allocation of resources, and the distractions of partisanship and compromise muddle action. This results in an institution no longer capable of effectively fulfilling its responsibilities, the effectiveness of its actions eroded through bureaucratic inundation.
The tendency of all politically centered organizations to focus on proximate responses instead of ultimate factors plays a key part in these disjointed operations. Such excesses of murky thought include the misguided measurement of performance by race – the ultimate factor is poverty. Much the same, the brouhaha over smaller class sizes without a sufficient stopgap against unqualified teachers serves to do more harm than good.
It is by no means an exaggeration to suggest that schools are thrust on the troubling spectrum of an extreme polarity. The theme is undeniably broad – enough so to provoke the ire of an English teacher, but truth be told, it is broad not because of a lack of focus, but because of its unfortunate indication that all is not well. The polarities between facilities and of resources are disconcerting, known, yet unprovoked. That it extends even to the performance within a class where half exceed without effort and half fail without attempt, all bored, is a scandalous, unknowing affair. Sputter on this frayed, stifling machine will, but only for so long, and not without cost.
Progress
The problems need not ceaselessly compound. The degree of executive power held by upper tiers of management must be reduced to the level of those closest to executing its responsibility. Management must reduce its role to guidance, preservation, and correction. As for the politicization of systems, it is necessary that manual interference with essential components be substantially reduced. Taxation – and the funding for schools – must not be held captive to the whims of politics, crippling the institution for political gain.
The stubbornness to upgrade facilities in spite of overcrowding and decay speaks to the necessity of binding obligations to maintain optimum performance. No one denies that managing organizations is grim business; what is deplored is the petty, “timid ignorance obstructing our progress.”[2]After all, there are only so many slips in the cracks to fill.
Education, El-Hajj Malik El-Shabazz tells us, “is the passport to the future.” In the cinema, his character spoke of having the best organization his people had ever had. Incompetents – (put kindly) – destroyed it. It is a pity that so much of organizational failure is tied up in nonsense. Nonsense, that makes for all too hilarious tales from the classroom.
But first, a better understanding of the school system’s structure is needed. The basics: the 49 million children, 105,105 schools, and nearly fifteen thousand districts are well understood.[1] What is not is how organizational structure and management more often than not work against its interest. The school as an institution finds itself in an interesting predicament. It is not dictated by free markets and it has no direct, active investors, so there is no existence or necessity for the organization’s evolution. Decay is inevitable. But it is not the school’s nature to compete – after all, equality is the ultimate aim sought. Competition in the school’s current form puts much smaller, newly established alternatives against the far more prevalent established system. Schools, in this manner, are no different from the cable company that cares not if you leave.
Kansas argues that competition between organizational systems works against the public interest by the very nature of its limited scope. Full autonomy, centered on ideas, but united in ultimate aims, is much more approachable: all schools should reach proficiency (the equality sought) – they compete on how best to reach it for each student. With this belief, comes the essence that most philosophies of a student’s education are effective – separately and only for relevant students. Yet, it is too often the hodgepodge of policies and philosophies that work against a school’s interests.
The school system, as with any institution, has a tendency to sever itself from its responsibilities through decay due to inefficient, inappropriate, or nonexistent responses to the environment in which the institution is operating in. The most common presence of such severance is through dilution of power downwards from where the policy originated, and a dilution of information clarity as it moves up the hierarchy, each prompting a delayed, incomplete, and often ineffective response to developments. It is only too fitting that management expert, Jim Collins, began his book Good to Great by stating “We don’t have great schools, principally because we have good schools.”
External developments are key causes for an institution severing itself from its responsibilities. Companies that fail to account for emerging developments in their fields fall victim to “disruptive” innovation. Instead of adopting a mindset of pursuing innovation and the renewed efficiencies it brings, as Clayton Christensen lays out in his book The Innovator’s Dilemma, an organization stalls against the short-term cost and reduction of industrial clout for scale to its ultimate demise. Where the capital markets find such demise in corporate failure, public institutions, such as schools, find their end in increasing ineffectiveness.
Politicizing an institution's systems can be equally problematic. The fickle avoidance of tax, poor allocation of resources, and the distractions of partisanship and compromise muddle action. This results in an institution no longer capable of effectively fulfilling its responsibilities, the effectiveness of its actions eroded through bureaucratic inundation.
The tendency of all politically centered organizations to focus on proximate responses instead of ultimate factors plays a key part in these disjointed operations. Such excesses of murky thought include the misguided measurement of performance by race – the ultimate factor is poverty. Much the same, the brouhaha over smaller class sizes without a sufficient stopgap against unqualified teachers serves to do more harm than good.
It is by no means an exaggeration to suggest that schools are thrust on the troubling spectrum of an extreme polarity. The theme is undeniably broad – enough so to provoke the ire of an English teacher, but truth be told, it is broad not because of a lack of focus, but because of its unfortunate indication that all is not well. The polarities between facilities and of resources are disconcerting, known, yet unprovoked. That it extends even to the performance within a class where half exceed without effort and half fail without attempt, all bored, is a scandalous, unknowing affair. Sputter on this frayed, stifling machine will, but only for so long, and not without cost.
Progress
The problems need not ceaselessly compound. The degree of executive power held by upper tiers of management must be reduced to the level of those closest to executing its responsibility. Management must reduce its role to guidance, preservation, and correction. As for the politicization of systems, it is necessary that manual interference with essential components be substantially reduced. Taxation – and the funding for schools – must not be held captive to the whims of politics, crippling the institution for political gain.
The stubbornness to upgrade facilities in spite of overcrowding and decay speaks to the necessity of binding obligations to maintain optimum performance. No one denies that managing organizations is grim business; what is deplored is the petty, “timid ignorance obstructing our progress.”[2]After all, there are only so many slips in the cracks to fill.
[1] United States Public Schools & Districts. School Matters. 2004. http://tinyurl.com/35rfmc. [2] The Economist.
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